Debunking the Digital Myth: Can Digital Governance Embedding Enhance Local Governments' Environmental Governance Efficiency? The Role of Implementation Burden

ABSTRACT Digital governance has received fervent attention from both theoretical and practical domains in recent years, and has gradually been touted as a “panacea” for addressing various issues. Especially on the issue of environmental protection, governments worldwide have sought to enhance their environmental governance efficiency by embedding the concepts, technologies, and methods of digital governance. However, while the potential benefits of digital governance embedding have garnered considerable academic attention, the associated implementation burdens it imposes on the public sector have received relatively little scrutiny or discussion. Based on panel data from 225 prefecture‐level cities in China from 2014 to 2022, this study empirically analyzes the impact of digital governance embedding on local government's environmental governance efficiency and unveils its mechanism from the perspective of implementation burden. The study found that: (1) Digital governance embedding has a “U‐shaped” impact on the environmental governance efficiency of local governments; (2) The implementation burdens arising from digital governance embedding constitute the core mechanism explaining this “U‐shaped” relationship; (3) Local governments' transformative public value preferences can mitigate the negative effects of implementation burdens on environmental governance efficiency. By incorporating the theoretical perspectives of implementation burden and public value preferences, the results can help scholars and practitioners rationally understand the impact of digital governance embedding on public sector's organizational operation and governance performance.